Maurice, the link you posted is blocked... what evidence are you trying to show for your assertion? This is the first time I've heard anyone say that the ST:TMP workbee was modified for one of the TV series.

You know what? You're right! I just went to Trekcore.com and examined the HD screencaps of scenes where the Workbee was seen. It's hard to tell, but in at least one or two shots the caution stripes were not visible. Someone must have altered the studio model at some point after 1978.

In the original yellow, the craft just didn't look like something we might have seen during the series '66 to '69 run. But in "white", it suddenly appears like something that could have been built as both a miniature and a full scale mock-up. Well, maybe without a few of the surface panels and the reaction thrusters (since we didn't see anything like them upon the Galileo or the "E" itself). No, I'm not suggesting you change anything; these are simply my personal biases.

Well, maybe without ... the reaction thrusters (since we didn't see anything like them upon the Galileo or the "E" itself).

Click to expand...

My own personal in-universe trexplanation for RCS thrusters on ships like the NX-01 and the refit Enterprise (which bracket the original NCC-1701 and Galileo-class shuttlecraft, which didn't have them): Constitution-class starships and Galileo-type shuttles used flywheels or gravity generators or something else besides RCS thrusters for fine adjustments to course and position. As it turned out though, field experience showed that this mystery technology was inferior in performance to good ol' tried-and-true thrusters. By the time that Cargo Management Units were designed (perhaps only a few years before ST:TMP), RCS thrusters were back in vogue. (And by the ST:TMP era, CMUs were usually painted yellow.)

White/putty/FedHullGray also goes better with that orange console. Like B.J., I didn't realize the workbees were yellow all along. A slight gold tint, perhaps, but otherwise neutral.

The only place the workbees were ever seen in DS9, to my recollection, was in the season 4+ opening titles, when they jazzed the sequence up. There's a workbee weaving between the pylons, but it's too small to tell if it sports these markings.

I kind of like the splash of color they bring to the exterior, but, as myself and others have noted, they aren't very logically placed on that updated model. Perhaps if they surrounded one of the panel details? Or ... why not a yellow and red racing stripe like we see on the side of the secondary hull?

Constitution-class starships and Galileo-type shuttles used flywheels or gravity generators or something else besides RCS thrusters for fine adjustments to course and position. As it turned out though, field experience showed that this mystery technology was inferior in performance to good ol' tried-and-true thrusters.

Click to expand...

Hmm, yeah, I'll buy that for a dollar (to steal a phrase from "RoboCop").

Seriously, that's not a bad idea. Kinda' meshes with my own thoughts about different contractors getting the job and pushing their own designs and technologies. Who knows, maybe the TOS "E" had a fairly heavy Andorian or Tellarite influence that lost and went back to Earth based industries by the time of TMP.

Andy Probert always balks that every spaceship should be gray, and I agree with him. The workbee is yellow because it's construction equipment, like a bulldozer, steamroller or steamshovel.

Click to expand...

Agreed. There's no reason why Starfleet or anyone else couldn't have leaped out of a Chris Foss painting, especially since that would make visual ID a bit easier.

The NX's bronze color scheme goes a long way in selling the ship as something at least a little different from familiar Starfleet, which is why I'm kind of sad that the ENT Netflix campaign seems to already be dropping it for the newer Earth ships.

Heck, as much as I may question the aesthetics of Doug's refit design, it's definitely better in bronze than silver or grey.

Time to put the CMU in the hangar bay to see how it looks. Even though I know it's basically a wearable spaceship and its interior is dominated by its single pilot seat, it's easy to forget how small it is until you see it next to some much larger objects, not to mention things that have real-world analogues (e.g., the elevator doors, the control console, etc.)

That's one thing this test scene made me realize. The other is that the Jefferies shuttle model is in dire need of a facelift... it looks positively flat compared to the CMU (probably because it only has baseline color and no textures).

Following up on the TMP workbees, I did find some photos from Trumbull's studio (via Trumbull's website) where you can see the zebra stripes, and then closer examination of the high def screenshots makes it plain they were, in fact, there, though in most cases it appears the sleds disguised many of them from view.